


Presents

by neveranygoodupthere



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, boys being dumb, hangovers, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:09:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveranygoodupthere/pseuds/neveranygoodupthere
Summary: A hangover saves the day





	Presents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [downjune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/downjune/gifts).



> Thanks for the prompts, downjune! I had trouble deciding which to do because I loved them all. Happy Holidays, hope you like it!

“Are you ready?”

Claude startles as Sid suddenly appears, knocking on his car door. The sun glares brightly through the windshield, sending stabbing pains through his already pounding head. He’d barely made his 7 a.m. flight out of New York he’d stayed up so late getting drunk alone in his hotel room near MSG. The hangover set in as he’d exited the plane in Pittsburgh, and as he drove the rental car to Sid’s, it took all his willpower not to pull over on the side of the road to vomit.

But he made it, and now Sid’s standing impatiently next to the car, unhappiness written in the downturned corners of his mouth, the way his eyes won’t quite meet Claude’s.

Claude once again wills his gag reflex into submission and rolls down the window. “Can you give me a minute? Maybe ask me in for coffee?”

Sid’s eyes finally snap to his. “You look fucking terrible. Did you drown yourself in whiskey last night?”

“Gin,” Claude rasps and shoves open the door, forcing Sid a step back. “Let me piss at least.”

“You need to hurry,” Sid gripes, following on Claude’s heels as he makes his way gingerly up the drive. “They’re only open until 3 today. I’m missing Christmas with my family for this.”

“Do you see my family here?” Claude snaps back, even as nausea roils through his gut. He picks up his pace. “I’m fucking missing mine too.”

Once inside, he heads straight for the first floor guest suite bathroom. As soon as he sees the toilet, his gag reflex activates and he drops to his knees just in time to aim for the bowl.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Sid hisses outside the door. Claude hears him stomp away, but ignores it in favor of emptying even more of his stomach.

He loses track of how many times his stomach heaves, but eventually the nausea stops. Sticky with sweat and smelling like vomit and misery, he leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. He wants to lie down and press his face to the cool tile, or maybe drown himself in the tub, but for the sake of his dignity remains where he is. He doesn’t hear Sid come back in, but after a few minutes, he feels a lukewarm wet washcloth dropped unceremoniously on his face.

“You done?” Sid says, the words clipped. Claude pulls the washcloth away to see a glass of water thrust in his face. He takes it and sips.

“Thanks.” He sets the water down, his stomach still too fragile, even for that. “Sorry.”

Sid rolls his eyes at the apology. “I’m canceling our appointment. You can’t go like this.”

“Sid—”

“I don’t want you to talk to me. I can’t believe you did this.” Just like outside, Sid won’t meet Claude’s eyes. He looks just as miserable as Claude feels and the shame of that washes over him.

“We can still go.”

“I’m not letting anyone repeatedly stab you with a needle when your blood’s this thin.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“I want to get this fucking thing off me.” Sid runs his hand over his face and finally, finally looks at Claude. “But since we can’t do that, I want you to sleep this off and then we can regroup. Can you get up on your own?”

Claude nods.

“Good.” His mouth twists and he stands in the doorway for an agonizing second before shaking his head and walking out. Claude stares after him.

He pulls himself up slowly, bracing against the sink, head hung low. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” This had been his idea originally. He needs to pull himself together. 

Claude makes his way to the attached guest bedroom, figuring Sid wasn’t offering up his own room for Claude to sleep off his hangover. Sid’s not there, but Claude’s bag is on the bed. His toiletry kit is laid out as is a clean pair of pajama, which Claude appreciates because the one pair he had in his bag smells like booze. He rolls his eyes when he sees what Sid’s left for him—a soft black T-shirt with the Pens logo emblazoned on the front, and flannel pants with PENGUINS running down one leg. But he probably deserves it, so he changes, heads back to the bathroom with his toiletry kit to brush his teeth and piss. Then he falls into bed, grateful to forget about the world for a while.

When Claude wakes up five hours later, he no longer feels like dying. Outside the window, the sun has set, and he notices on the nightstand next to him are a glass of water and a bottle of Advil. He doesn’t remember seeing them before, so he wonders if Sid brought them in while he was sleeping. That thought reminds him where he is and why and he groans. There’s no help for it, though. He’s never been one to avoid his problems, and he can hear Sid in the kitchen, so he rolls out of bed, brushes his teeth, and heads that way.

Sid’s at the stove using a spatula to flip a couple of burgers, with lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and condiments set on the counter next to him. The familiar site of him cooking sends a dull knife through Claude’s chest. After they fix Claude’s fuck up, he’s never going to see this again—Sid in track pants and a Pens shirt, concentrating way harder than necessary, making food for the two of them. His instinct is to move in behind him, place a kiss on the nape of his neck, inhale his scent.

He settles for saying, “Hey.”

Sid tenses, but doesn’t turn around. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. Do you need help?”

“Can you fix the drinks?”

Claude sighs and moves beside Sid to grab the glasses. He stands closer than he should, he knows. But it’s been weeks since he’s seen him, and even longer since he was this close without hockey gear in the way. If he pushes up on his toes to look down the back of Sid’s shirt, he can almost make out the mark that sits over his shoulder blade, the one that would have been gone by now if the day had gone as planned. Claude would have been on his way back to Philly, never to see the mark again.

Sid must catch him because in the next moment, Claude’s shoved away.

“What are you doing?” It’s the first Sid’s looked at him since he entered the room.

He starts to apologize, but the remote look in Sid’s eyes gets his back up. “Getting the drinks.”

Sid’s mouth tightens. He turns back to the burgers and scoops them onto a waiting plate, movements jerky as he transfers everything over to the counter bar.

The first time Sid cooked for him, he made a post-game meal of chicken breast, sweet potatoes, and spinach at Claude’s place. Their marks hadn’t come in then, and they’d been awkward with each other, more used to hate-sex hookups than anything remotely date-like. But when Sid had offered to go back to Claude’s place and cook instead of blow Claude in his hotel room, Claude had been charmed into agreeing by the uncharacteristic hesitancy in voice. After they ate, Sid had invited himself to Claude’s bedroom and they spent the night being sweet with each other, Claude baffled by the change but too into it to ask questions.

There’s going to be no repeat of that sweetness tonight. They eat together in silence. Claude tries to start a conversation a couple of times, but Sid remains cold and short, so eventually Claude puts his head down and concentrates on his burger.

“I called the mark tattooist while you were asleep,” Sid finally says as they’re finishing up. “She reopens on the 26th. Apparently that’s a huge day for business with all the accidental Christmas markings.”

Claude rubs his thigh where his mark sits. If Sid notices the gesture, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Did you make us an appointment?”

“She takes walk-ins. I figured we’d try our luck.”

“Excuse me?”

Sid finally looks over at him, and his mouth twists in a bitter smile. “I’m just fucking with you. Got the first appointment of the day. 8 a.m.”

The same dread Claude felt that drove him to a late night binge last night settles into his gut again. Even the thought of alcohol threatens to make him gag again, though. So he only nods and stands up to clear his plate. He reminds himself again that this was his idea. And maybe Sid's angry at him for it, but he was the one who made the appointment in the end. 

They move into the front room with the Christmas tree. It’s real and professionally decorated with a few presents under it. Sid bends down to plug the lights in, and as he comes up, he stands up in a stretch, his hand brushing across his shoulder. Claude coughs and Sid whips around, as if he forgot Claude was with him. He jerks his hand down and sits on the couch, snagging the remote from the coffee table.

“I’ve got some episodes of that Christmas Cookie Challenge show DVR’d.”

Claude rolls his eyes, standing awkwardly in front of the tree. “You asshole. I don’t watch that.”

“Yeah, okay.” And for the first time that day, Sid smiles. “Come on, sit with me.”

Claude’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth so he settles on the couch. Sid flips on the TV and finds Christmas Cookie Challenge. As they watch, Claude feels Sid drift toward him and away, toward him and away.

When Claude first suggested that they get their marks tattooed over, Sid stopped touching him unless absolutely necessary. Not that he’d had much opportunity to do so. Claude had flung the the words out after the final game in the series when the Pens knocked the Flyers out of the playoffs. Sid had come over, wanting to spend the night like it didn’t fucking matter that, for another year in the row, Claude had failed his team. Claude had exploded. Accused Sid of not understanding what he needed. How could they be soulmates if Sid thought it was a good idea to be over then? Obviously the marks were a lie, the universe was wrong.

Claude regrets those words, more than anything. Hates the way Sid’s frozen him out. He tried to apologize after the Pens got knocked out, but Sid hadn’t taken any of his calls, didn’t answer his texts, flew immediately back to Nova Scotia. Then he spent the entire summer traveling across the world and ignoring Claude. So when the new season rolled around and Sid finally called, but only to tell him he'd made an appointment for them during their Christmas time off, Claude went along with it.

And now they’re here. Claude is miserable and Sid swings between angry and unfeeling. Claude’s lost him. As he gazes at the lights on the tree, and tunes out the cheery/frantic happenings on the tv, he can only regret.

There are only a few presents under the tree, and Claude catalogs them to distract himself from Sid’s warmth next to him. He can see the boxes in the front marked for several French Canadians that Claude would prefer not to think about at that moment. And then there’s a smallish one poking out of the back. Claude’s eyes aren’t great, but he thinks that’s his name on sticker tag. He stands up and moves to pluck it out from behind the tree.

“What’s this?” he says, turning to Sid.

“It’s nothing, give it here.” Sid’s behind him suddenly. He reaches for it but Claude boxes him out.

“No, it’s got my name on it.”

“Yeah well, I’m returning it. Apparently we’re getting each other something different for Christmas this year.”

“Sid.”

Sid glares at him. Then seems to run out of steam. “Open it, I don’t care.”

Claude wonders at the defeated look on his face, but he tears off the wrapping paper anyway. What he sees...

“What is this?”

“What does it look like?” It looks like...it looks like Claude might be wrong about a few things. He tears the rest of the paper off and drops it to the floor. Uncovered is a mounted canvas painting of him and Sid. It’s from a picture of them Claude had taken with Sid’s phone, a sweet moment as they were sitting on Sid’s couch. Claude had looked over as Sid watched the history program on tv as intently as if he was going to be quizzed on it after. He’d grabbed the phone closest to him, leaned in to kiss Sid’s cheek, and snapped the photo. Sid had looked sweet and startled and wonderful.

But then he’d snagged the phone and Claude thought he’d deleted the photo, worried it would end up on the cloud. Claude hadn’t said anything but he’d been upset. They couldn’t tell anyone about their relationship—one of the first things Sid had said after they’d gotten the marks was that they needed to keep them covered at all times. Claude had thought it meant he didn’t care, didn’t take their relationship seriously. Another indication that he didn’t understand what Claude wanted, would never be as invested.

He turns it around to show Sid. “I don’t understand. I thought you deleted this.”

“I didn’t want to. I pulled it off my phone and saved it on a jump drive. Got that guy who did the painting of me and Geno and Tanger to do this one too. Actually, he did this one first, months ago. He signed an NDA, and I talked to him, extensively. He’s...I trust him.” Sid shudders out a breath. “I don’t know why I still have it.” He trails off.

“Sid...”

“If you don’t want it, that’s fine. It’s...after all of this, I feel so dumb. I just—everything hurts. I hate that this is happening.”

Claude runs his free hand over his face. He didn’t expect this, can’t think what it means. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe he doesn’t need to interpret what it means.

Maybe he just needs to ask. So he does.

“So you—don’t want to get the mark removed?”

“I will. If you don’t want your mark, Claude—“

“No!”

Sid stares at him. And then he bursts out laughing, slightly hysterical?

“Are you kidding?”

Claude can’t interpret his tone, but he soldiers on. “I want your mark on me, Sid. I want this—us. We’ll…we’ll talk about things. Figure it out.”

Sid smiles at him. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

Claude smiles back.

“Yeah. Merry Christmas, Sid.”


End file.
